PACOMIO, saint. —
I. LIFE
Founder of coenobitism, b. in the Upper Thebaid to pagan parents around 290–292. A soldier at Esneh, there he came to know Christians and resolved to imitate them. Discharged shortly thereafter, he headed south, stopping at Senesit to carry out his purpose. There he took up residence in a small abandoned temple, called by the ancients the temple of Serapis. Meanwhile he was instructed in the truths of the faith and, shortly afterward, received Baptism; and on the very following night he is said to have had a vision revealing his future mission.He began to lead a retired life of prayer and charity, but soon realizing that in the village he could not live as a solitary, he resolved to embrace the anchoritic life, placing himself under the direction of a monk famous in those parts, named Palamone. The latter directed a colony of anchorites, upon whom he imposed his own way of life: daily fasting in summer, on alternate days in winter; eating only bread and salt and a few legumes, with no oil or wine; performing manual labor and giving its proceeds to the poor; spending half, or even the entire night, in prayer. P. lived for several years in close association with Palamone and had ample opportunity to observe the deficiencies of the anchoritic life when it was not subject to a genuine rule and strict obedience to a superior. Thus the conviction matured in P. that, in order to help a greater number of souls, it was necessary to introduce common life in a monastery, under the direct dependence of a superior.
To carry out his design, he separated from Palamone and went to settle at Tabennisi, an abandoned village situated on the right bank of the Nile. Shortly afterward he began to build a monastery surrounded by an enclosure to receive other monks, but it seems that the initial experiences were not encouraging, since he was unable to subject the first arrivals to common life. Soon, however, others came who were willing to accept the established way of life, and then still others, so that within a short time the monastery of Tabennisi gathered a hundred monks. It was then that P. imposed his Rule, assigned the various offices and tasks, and built a church in the monastery.
Since Tabennisi was no longer sufficient for the influx of new recruits, P. founded a new monastery not far away, at Pebû. Until then P.’s family had grown in the normal manner, by receiving individuals. It now increased through the accession of entire colonies of ascetics who embraced the new institution, submitting to P.’s obedience and to his Rule. The first was a group of ascetics from Senesit; P. sent some monks from the first monasteries there and organized life as in those monasteries. Another colony followed, living a short distance from the first but on the opposite bank of the Nile, at Temusson; then a third group of anchorites, living at Theblu under the direction of Petronio. This last acquisition had particular significance, since through the gift Petronio made to the Congregation of all his family’s possessions, P.’s material resources increased considerably. The five monasteries were situated relatively close to one another. Others soon arose farther away: three in the north around Panopolis (Aḥmîm), the first at the request of the local bishop, Ario, and the other two, at Schedsinâ and Tescinê, on P.’s initiative; and one in the south, at Phenum.
Leaving aside the expansion that took place afterward, during P.’s lifetime the Congregation had nine monasteries for men and two for women. This succession of foundations was accomplished in the brief period of approximately twenty-five years, between 320 and 346. As this expansion proceeded, P., for the convenience of administration, transferred the central seat from Ta-
bennisi to Pebû, where the superior general and the general treasurer would subsequently reside, and where the general meetings of the Congregation would be held. Shortly after one of these meetings, that of Easter 346, the plague broke out at Pebû and within a short time claimed more than one hundred victims, the most illustrious of whom was P. himself, who d. on 9 May 346, after forty days of atrocious suffering and having designated Petronio as his successor; Petronio, however, was carried off by the plague two months later. He was succeeded by Orsiesi, who, in order to avert a schism, entrusted the government to P.’s favorite disciple, Teodoro, while withdrawing to Senesit, to return to govern alone after Teodoro’s death (27 Apr. 368).
II. ORGANIZATION
The Pachomian institution represents a development, or rather the logical term toward which the various forms of monastic life practiced in Egypt in his time were tending. From the primitive eremitic form there had been a transition to the anchoritic form, through the gathering, around the most famous hermits, of disciples who performed certain acts in common, but still lived in separate cells and retained their freedom of action. It was P. who introduced common life within a monastery, under the direction of a superior and according to a body of rules governing the entire life of the monks. This is the form of religious life that subsequently became established and still prevails in the Church.1) P. was the first to write a rule. It survives in its entirety in the Latin version made by St. Jerome in 404 from a Greek exemplar, which in turn derived from the Coptic original; this was done at the request and for the convenience of a group of Latins from Canopus who understood neither Greek nor Coptic. The authenticity of the Hieronymian translation, in 194 articles, has now been confirmed by the discovery of Coptic fragments that correspond fully to the Latin version. This also resolves the question concerning the shorter recension: it is merely an excerpt from the original Rule. It is not that P. composed his Rule from the outset and all at once. Rather, it was completed little by little as circumstances demonstrated the need for new prescriptions. From this Rule and from scattered indications in the Lives of P., the organization of Pachomian cenobitism can be outlined.
2) It was a true religious congregation. At the head of all the monks dispersed among the various monasteries stood the superior general, initially residing at Tabennisi and later at Pebû. The general possessed the highest authority over all the monasteries, over all the superiors whom he appointed directly, and over all the monks. He preserved the unity of the dispersed family by regularly visiting the various monasteries and maintaining frequent correspondence with the various superiors. To preserve in all of them the awareness of being members of a single body, twice a year, at Easter and in Aug., he summoned them all around him at Pebû. At this gathering the brothers edified one another and listened to the exhortations of the father, while he regulated the proper functioning of the community, confirmed or changed the superiors of the monasteries and the heads of the houses. The first gathering had as its principal purpose the celebration of the Easter feasts; the second, instead, concerned temporal administration — at Pebû there also resided the general steward, who attended to purchasing the things necessary for all the convents and selling the products of the monks’ labor — and the restoration of fraternal charity through the forgiveness that the monks granted one another for any wrongs they might have committed against each other.
3) The monasteries were surrounded by a wall, within which stood various buildings: the monks’ dwelling houses (each monastery was divided into various « domus », as many as forty, each containing 20–40 monks, each of whom had his own cell); a church, refectory, kitchen, storeroom, wardrobe, infirmary, library, various workshops, and a meeting place for the entire community. Each monastery had its own superior, appointed by the general and assisted by a deputy. The individual houses of the monastery likewise had their own head with a deputy. Every three or four houses formed a tribe. The
monks were assigned to one house or another according to the trade they practiced, not, as Palladius attests, according to their differing character; and they held their rank according to their seniority in the profession.
The monks’ clothing consisted of a sleeveless linen tunic, tightened at the waist by a belt. A tanned goatskin hung from the shoulders to the knees, and over it they wore a kind of cuculla with a hood, upon which was the sign of the monastery and of the house to which each belonged.
4) The spiritual life bears the imprint of P.’s concern to make it possible and easy even for beginners, and its characteristic note is moderation. As practices of piety, five daily gatherings were prescribed: in the morning around dawn, at noon, and in the evening before the common meal; before retiring to rest in the individual houses, with six prayers and some psalms; and then, around midnight, a general assembly. This was generally presided over by the superior and consisted of three parts: psalmody, readings from Holy Scripture, and some prayers. For the celebration of the Eucharist, at first they went to the village church on Saturday, while on Sunday the village priests came to celebrate in the monastery church; later, when there were priests among the monks, the Eucharist was presumably celebrated on both days in their own church. It is not known whether Mass was celebrated on the other days. Spiritual progress was fostered by instructions given three times a week by the superior of the monastery and twice a week by the heads of the houses to their subjects. To this were added frequent spiritual conferences, frequent conversations between the superior and individuals, occasional exhortations, and the study of Holy Scripture imposed on everyone; for this reason P. required all to learn to read. The same moderation appears in ascetic exercises: fasting was imposed on everyone on Wednesday and Friday, while on the other days two frugal meals were provided, consisting of bread, legumes, fruit, and cheese, but sufficient and such as to allow the monks voluntarily to mortify themselves in some respect. P. permitted some to undertake special mortifications and even fasts, provided that these did not prevent them from attending to their duties, since he always kept in mind the demands of common life.
5) All the monks, beginning with the superior, had to devote themselves to manual labor, which at first consisted in weaving ropes, mats, and baskets from Nile reeds and palm leaves; later, as the community developed, there arose all those occupations indispensable both for the life of a large organism and for procuring, through their proceeds, the resources necessary to support so many monks. In time the cultivation of fields outside the monastery also underwent considerable expansion, and during the harvest numerous groups of monks dispersed throughout the surrounding area, offering their labor in exchange for a specified quantity of provisions. For all these tasks, both inside and outside the monastery, P. laid down precise and wise rules, which, however, were not always observed, especially outside.
6) The Rule also reveals, in many respects, P.’s organizational genius. The spirit of moderation and sound balance that characterizes his entire institution is not contradicted by the minuteness of the prescriptions, the regulation of every action to be performed, or the elaboration of a complete penal code; for all this, besides being necessary for establishing a communal life, corresponded fully to the character of the Egyptians of that time.
7) It is difficult to attempt even an approximate statistic of the Pachomian monks. Cassian and the first Ethiopian recension of P.’s Rule put the number of monks at about 5,000, Palladius at approximately 7,000, whereas St. Jerome, in the prologue to the Latin version of the Rule, raises their number to more than 50,000, a figure applicable to the end of the 4th century and the beginning of the 5th. Historians generally consider the latter number exceedingly exaggerated. If, however, one considers that Pachomian monasticism represented not only an ascetic-spiritual movement but also a genuine social movement, the figure should be quite close to the truth, even allowing for a considerable increase after P.’s death.
8) It was all pure gold of the finest alloy in the Pachomian monasteries—
Were the Pachomian monasteries all pure gold? The answer differs according as one consults the Greek Lives or the Coptic ones. The former present an exceptionally bright picture, with scarcely a blemish, and reduce the monks’ shortcomings to very little; the latter, however, while agreeing with the former as regards the substance and portrayal of the protagonist, report more frequent and more serious violations of the rules, indeed serious lapses even in delicate matters. This is the picture that seems best to correspond to reality. This, however, in no way diminishes P.’s very great merit.